Shooting Stars
by lazy.flower
Summary: There are no such things as shooting stars. What are believed to be heavenly orbs of illumination streaking across the sky do not exist – They are merely the result of Ichigo pissing off Rukia.


Disclaimer: I'm sure this is every author's favorite part to write, but… I do not own Bleach. SIGHHHHHH. Oh yes, and I do not own the song referred to below; it belongs to its respective owners.

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**Shooting Stars**

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_Scritch scritch scritch_.

The sound of his pencil moving across the paper.

Kurosaki Ichigo frowned slightly, noticing that his answer didn't match up with the one Rukia had told him it was. He checked the problem, double-checked his work, and sighed in slight exasperation as he noted yet another careless mistake. He supposed this was what he got for cutting class so often.

The sound of an eraser sliding back and forth rapidly. It clunked on the desk as he picked up his pencil, determined to try again.

The sound of pages flipping.

The barely audible buzzing sound of the light bulb in his lamp, as its warm glow spilled onto his desk, math book, homework. The rest of his room dark as the night outside. He scratched his head again. Twirled his pencil once, twice.

Another flustered sigh. Ichigo bit the inside of his cheek, twirling the pencil every so often. Bit the end of the pencil, chewed the tip slightly. (It had just been an occasional thing until Rukia said it grossed her out. Then it became a habit as he did it more and more often just to bug her.)

'_Okay_,_'_ he thought, _'I think I get it. You just place the exponent over here and the variable becomes—'_

His thoughts were interrupted when the midget's cell phone went off.

'_~Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?~'_

It was blaringly loud… and it disturbed his comfortably peaceful study environment.

"RUKIA…!" Ichigo roared, furious over his lost train of thought. Grabbing the offending object off the side of his desk, he stood up and stomped over to his closet, forgetting all his thoughtful breakthroughs of the last ten minutes or so.

'_~I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right no-o-ow.~'_

Ichigo slammed the closet door open, gripping the cell phone with a deathly, white-knuckled fist. "MIDGET, YOUR STUPID PHONE IS DISTURBING MY STUDYING."

'_~Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky~'_

He brutally chucked the phone inside the closet, not looking where he aimed.

'_~Are like shoo—Thunk_.' The annoying ringtone cut off (_thank goodness_, a relieved Ichigo thought) as the cell phone made contact with an object.

"Ouch!" The said 'object' jumped up from her manga-reading, rubbing the place where her cell phone had hit her. "Fool, watch what you're doing with my stuff! Don't go throwing it all around the place, much less at me!" she berated, lunging toward Ichigo with her foot.

As if it was his fault, he scoffed.

"Shut up," Ichigo snapped, stepping back to avoid Rukia's kick. "It's your stupid cell phone's fault for disturbing my homework time. I'd almost figured out the answer to a problem when it went off and—"

"Oh, honestly!" Rukia retorted, clutching the cell phone to her chest in a defensive manner. "Are you really going to blame my ringtone for your stupidity and inability to figure out a simple math problem?"

"Hey! Math isn't easy, you know," Ichigo yelled, towering over Rukia. "Unlike you, some of us that are learning this stuff are only in high school!"

"So you're using your age as an excuse for your idiocy now?" Rukia smirked and crossed her arms.

"Wha—that's not what I said!" Ichigo sputtered. "I was just saying—"

Rukia grinned devilishly and began pulling at Ichigo's cheek with one hand, "Awhhh, wittle Ichigo wants hewp with his homewowk, is that it? Awhhh, it's okay, wittle boy, Wukia is hewe to hewp yooou."

Ichigo facepalmed.

"_Would you stop that already?_" Ichigo yelled, swatting Rukia's hand away and bringing her coos to a halt. Rukia crossed her arms and barely held back a smirk, knowing she had won.

"Fool," Rukia said, suddenly composing herself, "if you needed help, all you needed to do was ask me…"

Ichigo relaxed a bit. _'Huh. I guess even Rukia can be pretty considerate at times.'_

"… not go and assault my ringtone because you're brainless and—"

'_Or maybe not.'_

Ichigo's temper instantly flared up again, as he yelled out the first insult he could think of. "You idiot midget! Who uses a stupid ringtone that talks about airplanes becoming shooting stars anyways?"

"I do! And it's not stupid!"

"You just don't realize how stupid it is, _stupid_!"

"Coming from the idiot who can't solve a simple math problem!"

"It's not simple!"

"… I'm tired of this argument," Rukia suddenly muttered, running back to her closet and crawling inside.

"…" Ichigo stared at her as she seemingly withdrew from the argument. It wasn't like Rukia to just—

A small explosion-like sound. A black-clad figure hurtled toward him, grabbed his wrist, and dragged him out the window.

"Wuh…?" Ichigo exclaimed, startled, and looked up to the person grabbing his wrist.

"FOOL!" Rukia, in shinigami form, yelled at Ichigo, "YOU DON'T JUST INSULT MY RINGTONE AND GET AWAY WITH IT!"

Ichigo, still currently trying to analyze the situation, wasn't sure what to say. Apparently Rukia, in a sweeping rush of fury, rage, and emotion, decided to launch a surprise attack on him because he had… insulted her ringtone?

"So..." Rukia's chillingly cool voice broke Ichigo's thoughts. She was currently suspending them perhaps several kilometers above the city, dangling Ichigo by his wrist. He checked, wide-eyed. When had they gotten there? And why the heck was she dangling—oh, never mind—she'd let him go, Ichigo observed with a momentary relief.

Wait.

SHE LET GO?

Ichigo, thinking quickly and scrambling through his pockets, was grateful to find that he'd left his substitute shinigami badge in his pocket (for some odd reason). He quickly changed form, put his body in a nearby clearing, and shunpoed up to where Rukia had dropped him.

"RUKIA!" Ichigo bellowed. "WHAT THE HECK WERE YOU THINKING, DROPPING ME FROM SO HIGH UP?"

Rukia gave a coy smile Urahara would have been proud of. "So he's terrible at math and asking for help… now he admits to being afraid of heights? My, my."

"It's not a joke! I could have been seriously hurt, midget!"

"My ringtone is not a joke, either, baka!" Rukia shot back. "But I'll make you learn to respect my high standard of musical choice—" Ichigo snorted. "—by teaching you a lesson!"

"Don't make me laugh, Rukia," Ichigo said, crossing his arms and scowling. "You're just wasting my time and not helping with my math. I'm going to home and—WHAT THE!" Ichigo leapt to the side, narrowly dodging a huge… snowball?

"DON'T YOU DARE RUN FROM ME, KUROSAKI ICHIGO!"

"What the hell?" Ichigo roared, bewildered by the narrow miss. He looked up, eyes widening as they witnessed what was occurring before him. Rukia was somehow conjuring up huge boulders of ice using Sode no Shirayuki and subsequently using Kido to fire them at her target: Ichigo. An extremely smug smirk was apparent on Rukia's face as she carried out her retribution.

"No—Stop, Rukia!" Ichigo yelled as he barely dodged another dangerous ball of ice. "Seriously Rukia, I could get hurt!" Ichigo was behaving uncharacteristically… wussy.

"You think that's not the point, Ichigo?" The dangerous smile was still on her face.

"Whu—buh—RUKIA! AREN'T YOU GETTING A BIT TOO WORKED UP OVER A RINGTONE?" Ichigo protested, dodging iceball after iceball.

"Nope!"

"YOU'RE RIDICULOUS, YOU KNOW THAT MIDGET?"

"No I'm not!" Rukia innocently quipped, smiling mockingly. Her face suddenly shadowed over. "But I'm not stopping until you apologize about the song."

"WHAT?" Rukia really was being ridiculous now, Ichigo decided. Another iceball missed him. "But it's about airplanes being shooting stars and it's so stupid—"

"Apologize!"

… Perhaps it was that time of month? Ichigo couldn't decide, but he was not about to sacrifice his dignity for a stupid song. "NEVER!" And another dodge.

"Then I'm not stopping!" she sing-songed.

"YOU STUPID MIDGET…!"

Karakura Town enjoyed a nice display of "shooting stars" that night.

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**… So that's 'Shooting Stars' for you! And if you're wondering, I have no qualm with the song "Airplanes" (I love Hayley Williams' voice!), but I just thought it'd be fun to make a crack at it considering the storyline. :P**

**I'm not sure if this story really had a purpose, and IchiRuki's only apparent if you squint… But I hope you enjoyed this story and got a few laughs at Ichigo being owned by Rukia's awesomeness! Moral of the story: Never mess with Kuchiki Rukia. _Ever_. ;)**

**By the way, this is my first Bleach story (written and published in an hour and a half—can I get a 'woot woot'?), so please be nice and review? I do plan on writing more Bleach stories (I'm mainly a HitsuKarin shipper), so perhaps plan on seeing me around a bit more! … Weeeell, that actually depends on when I get my AP summer homework done, so we'll see. ):**

**But in the meantime, constructive feedback, giggles, and thumbs up/down are all greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading and have an awesome day!**

**x lazy**


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